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Thursday, February 6, 2014

Regrouping with Addition

We have been working hard in second grade on regrouping with addition, and I am so proud of my kidlets for expanding their thinking and trying new things! We were always planning to teach regrouping, but partway through the unit, we attended a professional development session on Singapore Math and I was SO inspired, I rewrote my lessons for the next few days to include some of the ideas we saw in the session. There is so much to the program, and I know without extensive training I will never be able to do the principles justice, but there were a few things that I know I can incorporate into any math program I am teaching.

One of the big things in Singapore Math is always following the concrete to pictorial to abstract trajectory, even for older and higher level students. In the presentation, we saw hundreds, tens and ones place value discs that had the value of each written on it (here is a video that takes you through the basics). My mentor teacher and I both liked them a lot, and I thought it would be great to incorporate into my lesson the next day. Sounds like a great idea, right? Well, it WOULD have been if I actually followed the great inspiration from the presentation right in that lesson. However, for some reason, neither my teacher nor I thought there would be anything wrong with skipping the concrete part of the lesson, and jumped straight to the pictorial! Big mistake.

I was so excited to go home and rewrite my lesson, and I spent a bunch of time updating it to include students solving addition regrouping problems through drawing an HTO (hundreds, tens, ones) chart and drawing place value discs. Well, let me tell you, when I taught that easy lesson, it was met with confused stares and loud exclamations of "huh?!?" I slogged through the lesson, trying to pull my poor kiddos along with me, but after seeing their less than desirable results on the worksheet, I admitted defeat and went back to the drawing board. After a discussion with my mentor teacher, I wrote another lesson that actually took the students from concrete to pictorial. I made an 11x17 HTO chart with a tens frame and used two-sided discs for ones and tens, and used unifix cubes for the hundreds. The manipulatives we McGyvered together I am sure are not as effective as the real thing, but they worked well enough for a last minute lesson!

The lesson the next day went so well, it was like night and day. Case in point that students actually DO learn better when they go from concrete to pictorial to abstract. Go figure! Both my mentor teacher and I felt pretty silly for not even thinking it would be an issue, and both experienced a big "DUH!!" moment. The students not only grasped the material quickly, but they also were really engaged in the lesson. They loved playing with the manipulatives, and understood what the discs stood for. Ms. G and I both felt that their number sense got stronger through this lesson, and will be much more prepared for later, more difficult concepts. One thing that really made me happy was to hear a student who had been struggling with the concept tell me that this made so much more sense to her, because it showed her how to do math the way she thinks. Yay!! I can't wait to learn more about Singapore Math and be fully trained, as I really believe in the power of this program to teach students to think flexibly about math.

I went on to teach a few different ways to regroup- base ten blocks (also starting with the concrete manipulatives), the break apart method, and the traditional method (carry the one). We talked about why it is important to learn different ways to solve problems, and how to figure out which method works best for them. We also worked a lot on explaining their answer and asking "does this make sense?"

Tomorrow they take the assessment, and I am so anxious to see how well they understood the material! This is a review I made them that they took today- the word problems are tied in to our family unit, so the numbers are what we call "fiction." If they do as well on tomorrow's assessment as they did on this review, I will be pretty proud.

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Emi and Dana

A little about us

Emi is a new teacher who recently finished student teaching and is now ready to start her career in the classroom. She currently lives in New York with her husband Andrew and their turtle, Pancake. Dana is Emi's mom and a veteran kindergarten teacher on Maui, where she lives with her cat, Chandler. Emi always said she would never be a teacher, and pursued a career in business before she finally admitted that education was where her heart really belonged. Dana didn't rub it in, at least not too much. We decided to start this blog to document Emi's journey as a new teacher as well as Dana's wonderful teaching practices. This blog is one way we keep in touch with each other and share our lives as teachers. We hope that through sharing our experiences with each other and with you, we can support and learn new things. Enjoy!